Costco offers a variety of business and consumer services. Business services include
payment processing, payroll health, dental
and vision plans, business prescription insurance, business checks and forms, and more.

For more information, go to Costco.com and
click “Services,” or call 1-800-220-6000.

; Janna Hoiberg’s The FamilyBusiness (Harvest Enterprises Press,

2013; not available at Costco)

; Family Business Magazine: family
businessmagazine.com/

; U.S. Small Business
Administration’s website and local
offices. For example:
sba.gov/blogs/
running-family-business-within-law-0

; University of San Francisco’s
Gellert Family Business Center: usfca.
edu/management/gellert

; Loyola University Chicago Family
Business Center:
luc.edu/quinlan/
fbc/—CM

Resources

FAMILY BUSINESS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

advises. Bosses must make logical decisions
rather than emotional ones, even when family
members’ feelings are on the line.

In addition, staff at all levels must keep
family issues, rivalries and feuds at bay during
work hours. If kin can’t stop butting heads on
business decisions, perhaps it’s time to move
on, Shemia says. He advises that parting ways
with the employee—the employee either quits
or is let go—could be the answer.

In the end, family and non-family employees alike must respect the business decisions of
the boss. That’s where having a tough skin
helps: “I don’t care that much if someone’s feelings get hurt,” Watrous says, with regard to
business decisions. “Family dinners can get
awkward, but you get through it.”

Family unity

In exchange for workplace drama, family
members bring passion, loyalty and commitment, says Watrous.

“You will trust your family more than
anyone else,” Hoiberg agrees, which can help
the business to grow. Hoiberg has heard
numerous family business owners remark
that their trust of their employees doesn’t rival
their trust of their employee-relatives. “They
know the family member is watching their
back,” she says.

In addition, no one knows your personality, as well as your strengths and weaknesses,
better than your family, explains Shemia, who
tends to be straightforward and jump right in
to an idea, while his wife and brothers are
more conservative, and skeptical.

“You have to have a balance of personalities in a business to keep things on an even
keel,” Hoiberg says.

In the end, working together with people
you care about can offer job satisfaction like
no other. “There’s no one I’d rather do this
with than David,” Copley says. “It is a dream
come true to work together.” C

Carrie Madren ( carriemadren.com) is a freelance writer based in northern Virginia.

Hats in Freedom, California, with his father,
Gary. Other family members in the business
include Garth’s mother, Gary’s current wife
and Garth’s wife, uncle and sister-in-law.

To juggle so many opinions, the father-son owners have learned to create a balance
between allowing employees to have a voice
through an open-door policy and doing what’s
best for the company.

“Run the business as a business first, and
as a family-owned business second,” Hoiberg